I Can Dance Again: How Personal Training Helped Jonathan Get Back On The Dance Floor

Tap Dancer Jonathan Devoto

Jonathan reached out to me last year inquiring about setting up personal training together. As a part of my due diligence, I began by getting a full background and history.

When someone has issues that are causing pain symptoms it's important for me to assess and make the appropriate recommendation and referrals. In this case, Jonathan had been doing Physical Therapy for some time for an old knee issue. He wasn't able to do the things he loved without being sidelined afterwards and he wasn’t getting any relief or improvement.

What did we do?

A standard part of my operating procedure for anyone is an assessment. As a coach, my job is to help you with strength and conditioning, not to provide Physical Therapy. 

But a part of what I do as a guide is help people understand how their body works and provide ways in which we can improve within the context of our limitations.

Our Assessment found that Jon didn't have any Hip Rotation at all and that he was unable to control rotation of his knee. I write extensively about the importance of Knee Rotation on my Substack.

You can't move where you can't move. What you can't move you can't control. What you can't control you cannot strengthen. Your Hamstrings are responsible for Knee Rotation. If you have no connection between your brain and the stuff required to move your hamstrings then you can't improve it.

Up until this point no one had told him either of these facts about his Hip or Knee Joint. 

This simple finding gave us Point A.

It allowed us to redefine his current training and activities and give him direction as to what needs to change in his program. 

I believe a coach's main job is to, "help some do more and help others do less".

After working together

Aside from being an amazing tap Dancer among other things, Jonathan is also a Personal Trainer, so his body is important to his life in so many ways. We often don't realize how important our Mobility is until we become limited. 

Our initial plan was just to improve his Hip and Knee's ability to rotate and once we do that, strengthen those joints. 

That worked so well for him and he gained so much relief in his knee that he was able to get back to doing more of what he loves doing. He’s now able to dance and do all the activities he enjoys. But now he's also taking what he's learned, shifting his thought process on training in order to improve and enhance the lives of the people he works with. 

I would love to take credit for this, but to be real, Jonathan put in the work necessary to create the change he so desperately wanted to achieve. I simply played the role of Gandalf, gently nudging and providing the necessary tools along the way. 

Changing your current state of being is all in your hands. 

No coach is going to do the work for you. You have to put energy into it and be willing to push through the highs and lows. You have to understand that the process is not linear and that the space you've been in for so long is not going to change overnight. 

If that sounds like something you're ready to commit to, then the first step is acknowledging that you need help and committing yourself to the process.